Food Pacific Manufacturing Journal

FOR all the convenience of plastic bottles and the cachet of glass, I must say it is the carton with which I associate the most pleasant memories of childhood. When I close my eyes, I see tetrahedrons chilling in ice-packed coolers, piled high in a grocery trolley, and freshly stamped and squashed on the playground. Those empty cartons certainly made a satisfying pop. That dates me, doesn’t it?
I have no idea what happened to those flattened tetrahedrons after my schoolmates threw them into the bin. Were they recycled? Probably not - most likely dumped into a landfill.
These days, it's very different, of course. Cartons are being collected, milled and pulped, and transformed into any number of different products, such as writing paper, envelopes and shopping bags.
Communities are even setting up recycling centres and children are being exposed to segregating and separating recyclable materials from a young age. They’re even taught the proper way to fold brick-shaped carton for disposal and collection: Flip (make sure the carton is empty, remove the straw and flip the top flaps). Flap (flip open the bottom flaps). Flat (flatten the carton).
I guess it would take too many stamping feet to squash the millions of cartons that are now emptied every day. But can you imagine what a satisfying pop that would make?